No one knows the exact moment the world shifted. It wasn’t an explosion, or an announcement, or even a scream. It was more like… a quiet erasure. A slow, methodical forgetting. Entire neighborhoods redesigned without permission. People waking up in apartments they swore weren’t theirs. Maps that changed. Memories that didn’t match.

They called it progress.

But somewhere under the streets, beneath the daily noise of car horns and hurried footsteps, something hummed.

Lena Myles never really liked silence it made her ears ring, made her thoughts too loud. But lately, silence was all she heard. Even in a city packed with life, her world had gone muted. People spoke, but their words felt rehearsed. Familiar streets felt cloned. Her morning routine? Almost too perfect. Same coffee shop. Same latte. Same barista with the same glitchy smile.

She worked for the City Records Bureau, buried in the archives building no one visited unless they were desperate. She filed zoning histories, monitored redevelopment codes, and watched dusty microfilms like they were documentaries of a forgotten civilization. At 27, Lena lived alone in Tower 9C, Block 117. At least, that’s what her ID said.

But deep down… she wasn’t so sure.

She had dreams she couldn’t explain. Cities with curved towers. Streets overgrown with vines. Crowds chanting things like “WE REMEMBER.” A strange child always stood at the edge of those dreams a boy who never blinked. And every time she tried to speak to him, the dream would cut out like a static-choked signal.

One rainy afternoon, a man she didn’t recognize came into the archive. Older, maybe in his 60s. Clean suit. Odd stare.

He handed her a request slip.

“Zoning record for Sector 4L, Sub-Block Gamma. Need the full file, pre-‘09 revisions.”

She nodded out of habit and walked back into the stacks. But the file didn’t exist.

Not that it was missing it had never been logged. As if the entire block had been built on… nothing.

When she returned to tell him, he was gone.

In his place, a single folder sat on her desk. Unmarked. No barcode. Just a sticky note inside:

“You’re not supposed to find this. Which is exactly why you must.”

Inside was a redacted report titled:

CBAP COHORT 17 - ACTIVE MONITORING

She flipped to the second page. Names. Dozens of them.

And there it was.

Myles, Lena

Tower 9C, Block 117

Emotional Index: 7.9 (high sensitivity) REMEMBER THRESHOLD NEAR LIMIT

Her hands trembled. A low ringing started in her head. Something was wrong not just the file. Her.

Suddenly, the power flickered. The screens in the office glitched for a second just a blink and when they stabilized, her monitor displayed a different time. A full hour had passed. She had no memory of it.

On her way home, the streets looked slightly different. The café on the corner? Gone. In its place, a boutique she’d never seen before. Her neighbor the friendly woman with two cats? A locked door, no signs of life.

And that night, she finally opened the locked drawer in her bedroom desk. The one she never remembered locking.

Inside: an envelope labeled “Lena. REAL.”

It held a birth certificate. Name: Lena Myles.

But the address? Wrong.

Birthday? Wrong.

Parents? Names she’d never heard before.

Taped behind it: a wrinkled photograph of her as a child. Except she was standing next to someone with her exact face. Older. Watching her.

And written in black marker along the edge:

“DO NOT TRUST YOUR REFLECTION.

THEY’RE USING YOUR FACE.”

Lena didn’t sleep that night.

The next morning, her window looked out on a park that hadn’t been there the day before. Kids played, birds flew overhead but everything was too still. Too perfect. Like a simulation designed by someone who had only read about childhood.

As she stepped into the hallway, the walls of her apartment building shimmered faintly. Just for a second. Like a mirage.

Then came the voice, clear and low, from the intercom:

“Cohort 17. Breach Detected.

Reset Protocol: Pending.”

She ran.

⸻

🔍 Questions we don’t know?

What is Cohort 17? Are there more like her?

How much of Lena’s life was implanted and why?

Who was the man with the zoning request?

Is she human? Or something else?

What happens when a “reset” is triggered and who controls it?

And most of all: if they’re using her face… where’s the original Lena?

💬 Got a theory? Drop your thoughts in the comments who do you think is real, and who’s been overwritten? Thanks for reading it only gets deeper from here. The next chapter will blow your mind. Stay tuned. 👁‍🗨

By the time Lena hit street level, her breath was shallow, sharp as if the air itself didn’t want to be breathed. People passed her, heads down, eyes glazed. No one looked her way. But she felt it. Watched. Tracked. Not by eyes, but by… something.

She cut through alleyways, jumped a train gate, took the westbound line didn’t matter where it went. She just needed to move. To think. To feel real.

The train was nearly empty. Three passengers sat completely still. Not asleep. Just… still. One of them blinked at her, but not with confusion. With recognition.

That’s when he mouthed it:

“Cohort 17.”

Her pulse spiked. Before she could ask anything, the lights overhead flickered and blink the man was gone. Not moved. Not walked out. Gone.

A print ad on the train wall now read:

“Smile. Your version has been updated.”

Lena got off at the next stop.

⸻

Back in her apartment that night, she didn’t trust the mirrors. Covered them with towels. Her face felt too… symmetrical. Like it had been printed fresh.

She logged into an old government terminal she still had access to. Typed in the keyphrase from the folder: CBAP COHORT 17.

A list populated.

118 names.

She recognized one Mira Rell a girl from university. Quiet. Vanished junior year after some breakdown, they said.

Lena found an old contact. Traced Mira’s last address to a basement-level art co-op looked abandoned.

When she got there, she felt it immediately: this place was off-grid. Doors weren’t on hinges. Windows were lined with mirror foil. And in the far back: a mural. A painted eye with wires coming out of it, feeding into cities. Faces in the background dozens identical copies. Same smile. Same stare.

Then, a voice from behind her:

“You were supposed to stay asleep, Lena.”

It was Mira. Older. Worn. But alert.

She pulled Lena into the shadows, pulled a curtain across a section of wall. Behind it: corkboard madness photos, blueprints, connected with red thread. All centered on two words:

THE PROGRAM

Mira handed her a device. Looked like a remote, but no buttons just a trigger and a needle-sized sensor.

“This detects resets,” she said.

“Memory wipes. Location shifts. People replaced.”

Lena shook her head. “Replaced?”

Mira locked eyes with her.

“You think they just erase people? No. They overwrite them. Same skin. Different data. Your neighbor? Your co-worker? Half of them aren’t real. Not anymore.”

Lena thought of the woman with the cats. Gone overnight. Replaced by silence.

⸻

Outside, alarms blared in the distance.

Mira grabbed Lena’s arm.

“They found us.”

Suddenly, the door behind them shattered inward.

Figures in black. Featureless helmets. No sound. No shouting. Just movement efficient and fast. Their steps didn’t echo.

One of them raised a hand. Lena stared, and something inside her memory cracked a flash: she’d seen these people before. Not just in dreams in an old childhood video. At a birthday party that hadn’t happened.

She turned and bolted, Mira behind her.

They escaped through a trapdoor, into the tunnels below the city. The air was colder. Older. Like history had never been allowed down here.

Mira hissed between breaths:

“They’re called the Nullmen.

They’re not people. They’re failsafes.

And one of them used to be someone I loved.”

⸻

They hid in an old signal station flickering lights, rusted panels. Lena, gasping, stared at the remote in her hand. It pulsed once. Red.

Reset triggered.

But this time, she didn’t forget.

This time… she remembered everything.

⸻

🔍 Questions we need to know:

• What are the Nullmen and were they all once human?

• How does Mira know so much? Is she helping Lena or hiding something?

• Why is Lena immune to the reset this time?

• Are they underground in reality or in a simulation?

• And what does the phrase “overwrite” really mean?

The tunnel beneath the city was cold, wet, and full of static. Every step Lena took felt heavier than the last. The air didn’t smell like dirt or mold. It smelled like something burnt and electric, like wires that had melted a long time ago.

She held the reset device in her hand. The red light blinked every few seconds, slower now, like a heartbeat that was getting weaker.

Mira walked in front of her, quiet. She didn’t say where they were going. She just kept moving deeper, her flashlight bouncing against wet metal walls. Nothing about this place felt like it should exist. It didn’t even feel like it was built. It felt like it was printed, like the world had made a fake version of itself down here.

Then Mira stopped.

In front of them was a solid door with no handle, no keypad, just a metal plate the size of a hand.

Mira placed her palm against it and whispered something.

“CBAP seventeen fourteen.”

The metal rippled like liquid and disappeared.

They stepped inside.

The room was covered in mirrors. Every wall, the floor, even the ceiling. But when Lena looked into them, she didn’t see her reflection.

Only Mira’s.

Lena blinked, moved her hand, turned around. Nothing. Her body didn’t exist in the mirror.

She felt sick. Confused.

“Why can’t I see myself?” she asked.

Mira didn’t answer right away. She opened a wall panel and pulled out a black case. Inside were folders, broken hard drives, and an old ID badge.

Dr. K. Hesse. Systems Neurology. CBAP.

Lena took the badge, heart racing.

“I saw that name before,” she said. “In the collapse files.”

Mira nodded. “He’s the one who designed the brain structure for The Program. He believed if you changed a person’s memories slowly, they wouldn’t notice. Their life would keep going. They would think everything was normal.”

She handed Lena a photograph.

It was blurry, old. A lab. A white room. A girl sat in a chair, wires in her scalp, eyes wide open but completely empty.

Below the photo were the words: Test-17A. Subject: Lena M.

Lena stared at the picture, barely breathing.

That was her.

She dropped the photo and backed out of the room. Her mind was spinning. She saw flashes again. Wires. Blue lights. Needles. A door closing. Someone screaming. A woman’s voice calling her name underwater.

She stepped into the hallway, and that’s when she heard it.

A clicking sound.

Not footsteps. Not breathing.

A soft, sharp click like bones tapping against tile.

She turned and saw him.

Tall. Pale. Wearing a dark coat. Not blinking.

His eyes were black. Not empty, but full. Too full.

He was bleeding from the side of his neck.

But the blood was moving upward.

She couldn’t move.

Mira appeared behind her, whispering fast.

“That’s a Nullman. If it sees that you’re remembering, it’ll reset you. Or worse.”

The figure stared at Lena and tilted his head. He didn’t speak with his mouth. His voice came straight into her mind.

“You are not supposed to be here.”

Lena tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t move. The hallway felt thick, like the air had turned into glue. The lights above her weren’t flickering. They were fading.

Then the strangest thing happened.

The Nullman reached into his coat and pulled something out. But it wasn’t an object.

It was a memory.

He held it in front of her like a floating video. And she saw it. Herself. As a child, riding a train, laughing. But then she looked across the seat.

There was another girl.

Another version of herself. Same face. Same age.

She looked normal. But something was off. Her eyes were too calm.

Two Lenas.

The memory snapped like glass and disappeared.

Lena screamed.

Everything went black.

When she opened her eyes, she was inside a glass room. No doors. Bright lights.

Outside the glass stood an old man. His skin looked faded, almost see-through. His face was tired but calm.

He tapped the glass once.

“Hello again, Seventeen-A,” he said. “Your window to reintegrate closed years ago. You’ve begun to blend into the others.”

Lena stood up slowly, heart pounding.

“What others?” she asked.

He smiled.

“The other versions of you. All seventeen of them.”

He placed his hand on the glass.

“We only need one.”

⸻

Questions we need to know:

Who are the other versions of Lena?

Why can’t she see her reflection anymore?

What are the Nullmen really doing with people’s memories?

Is Dr. Hesse alive or is he just a ghost inside the system?

Was Lena ever born or was she created like a file?